Assessing the Effects of Terrestrial Protected Areas on Human Well-Being: A STAP Advisory Document

The creation of protected areas (PAs) has been a central strategy of biodiversity conservation for more than a century. Increasingly, in the last few decades of the 20th century a new requirement was added – that the cre¬ation and maintenance of PAs should strive to alleviate poverty, and should in no case exacerbate it. The Durban Accord agreed at the Vth International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) World Parks Congress in 2003 was a milestone in the process of mainstreaming PAs in development agendas.